1. The document discusses key insights from neuroscience and psychology research on human decision making. It explains that much of decision making happens unconsciously in the brain before we are consciously aware of it. 2. The brain processes information in parallel through both an automatic emotional system and a controlled cognitive system. The emotional system often influences decisions unconsciously through feelings, intuitions and impulses. 3. There are specialized regions of the brain involved in decision making, and certain areas like the insula are activated both by physical sensations and social emotions like rejection or empathy. Understanding how the brain works can provide insights for influencing behavior.

1. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DECISION
MAKING
ARAM JAFARI

2. WHAT WE WANT TO KNOW?
• Before jump into specific, targeted influence techniques => Its vital to
understand some of the key processes that underpin human decision making
• Synopsis of some of the most recent insights from cutting-edge studies in the
field of neuroscience and psychology.
• Understand and influence your global audience

3. study of human behavior and motivation
philosophers & psychologists

4. Brain imaging; EEG, PET, fMRI
Advances in neuroscientific technologies
Single-neuron measurement
The study of brain-damaged patients
TMS and DTI
Building a picture of how and why we behave in
certain ways
gather information on how the brain works

5. WHICH COMES FIRST—THOUGHT OR ACTION?
Few of our decisions within our conscious control

6. monitor brain activity during decision-making tasks
Using EEGs
Researchers have found that we actually become consciously aware of our intention to act a full
300 milliseconds after the relevant areas of our brain become active.2 It’s then an additional
200 milliseconds before we actually express the behavior overtly, which means that our
conscious experience of free will happens only after the neural events that caused it
your brain knows what you’re going to do before you do
You only experience the intention (that leads you to an action) after your brain is already committed
If you know which specialized system(s) and unconscious processes are engaged during decision-making,
you can use this knowledge to shape behavior

7. THREE THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT
DECISION-MAKING

8. YOUR BRAIN THINKS IN PARALLEL
Want people to like you?
It’s not unusual for one process to influence another seemingly unrelated process, with startling results

9. Insula
1- Responsible for processing physical temperature
2- Processing interpersonal warmth
The insula also plays an active role in our social emotions, such as empathy, trust,
embarrassment and guilt
lights up when we feel socially rejected or excluded
situations and surroundings

10. NESTLÉ’S AD FOR PURE LIFE WATER

11. YOUR BRAIN IS SPECIALIZED
10% Neurons => most active and important
90% Glia => supporting role, providing insulation, structure and nutrients to the all-important neurons
They control the transfer of information between neurons, affecting
how the brain processes information and learn, stores information
2011

12. THE LONDON CAB DRIVER
50% Candidates pass
Structural MRI
larger memory centers

13. YOUR BRAIN’S DUAL-CORE SYSTEM
Automatic
(emotional) Controlled
(cognitive)
Thinking Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman

14. Decisions

15. Thinking
fast Thinking
slow
Automatic
Intuitive
Below the level of conscious awareness
Motivate impulse reactions & feelings; huger, fear, …
Affect everything from the ability to learn to
the goals we choose to pursue.
More analytical,
Deliberate
Rational
employ to reason about the world
Math, Return tax
Lazy

16. System 1 will continually generate feelings, intuitions
and intentions, which, if endorsed by System 2, will
turn into beliefs and actions
System 2 that steps in

17. THINKING V. FEELING
“Where thought conflicts with emotion, the latter is designed by the neural circuitry in our brains to win.’’

18. EMOTIONAL ANESTHETIC
•
In an online context, it pays to remember that we are emotional
creatures and that if we want to engage with and influence our
online audience we’ll have to appeal to both their emotional and
rational minds

19. RESOURCE
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L. E. Williams and J. A. Bargh (2002) “Experiencing physical warmth promotes interpersonal warmth,” Science, 322 (5901): 606–7.
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20. RESOURCE
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503–14.
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(accessed 3 January 2012).
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(12): e1002293.
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21. RESOURCE
M. D. Lieberman, R. Gaunt, D. T. Gilbert and Y. Trope (2002) “Reflection and reflexion: A social cognitive neuroscience approach to attributional inference,” in M. Zanna (ed.),
Advances in Experimental Social Psychology. New York: Academic Press. pp. 199–249.
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